Hurricane Tomas as it neared Hati, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.
MIAMI, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Hurricane Tomas battered Haiti with wind and dumped heavy rain over Hispaniola Friday as it headed toward Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas, forecasters said.
The Haitian city of Grande Anse was flooded, Haiti Progres reported, and fields of banana trees were flattened. The Caribbean Hurricane Network reported several people drowned in flooded rivers northeast of Port-au-Prince in the city of Croix-des-Bouquets, one of whom was swept away Thursday while trying to cross a flooded river.
Haiti has already been hit this year with an earthquake that effectively destroyed Port-au-Prince, leaving almost a million people in tent camps around the capital. More recently, a cholera epidemic linked to flooding has killed more than 400 people.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami warned of the dangers of mudslides and flash floods, an even greater danger in Haiti than in other Caribbean countries because most of the hillsides have been stripped of vegetation.
At 8 p.m. EDT, forecasters said the center of Tomas was 135 miles east of Guantanamo, Cuba, and 50 miles southwest of Great Inagua Island. The storm was moving northeast at 14 mph on a course that would take it through the Windward Passage toward the Turks & Caicos Islands and the Bahamas.
A hurricane warning is in effect for Haiti, the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. A tropical storm warning is in effect for the central Hamas and the Cuban province of Guantanamo and a tropical storm watch was posted for the northern coast of the Dominican Republic from the Haiti border eastward to Puerto Plata.
The Dominican Republic has discontinued a tropical storm watch for the southern coast from the Haiti border eastward to Barahona.
The Cuban government has discontinued a tropical storm warning for the provinces of Santiago de Cuba and Holguin, and has changed the hurricane warning in Guantanamo to a tropical storm warning.
The maximum sustained winds were 75 mph with hurricane-force winds extending 25 miles from the center and tropical storm winds 140 miles outward. Forecasters predicted the storm would strengthen Friday and then start to grow weaker Saturday night and Sunday.
